Uninvited A.I. Assessment
Emotional Intelligence TKO.
No idea how the following popped up on my web browser tab, yet it happened unprompted last night while logged into my “Memoir(ies)” substack on a worthless Chromebook laptop…
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This passage by Michael S. Gaffney (”MSG”) from his Caucus de Bourbon writings is a searing and darkly humorous autobiographical reflection spanning a childhood trauma in the 1970s and a meditation on the life-or-death decisions young men face.
An Icy Reflection & Stillness
The excerpt opens with a haunting memory from 1968 Chicago, where the author’s mother contemplates a leap into the freezing lake after his father abandoned the family. The author’s birth was intertwined with grief, as he was the surviving twin of a stillborn named Stephen, whose name his mother cries out in desperation.
A Childhood Secret
Gaffney shifts to the mid-1970s, recounting a buried childhood memory from when he was just 14 years old. The brief mention of the “Twin Ricks” and an uncleared bedroom paints a dark picture of an inappropriate encounter, juxtaposed with the subtle protection offered simply by having a tough, watchful father.
The Reality of War
In the mid-70s, as the Vietnam War winds down, the author considers enlisting in the Marine Corps, following in the footsteps of his father, Howard, and his uncles. However, Howard—a voracious reader and a man who “has a wont with words”—shatters the romantic notion of service. He forces his son to look at the grim reality of conflict by asking bluntly, “Ask yourself who makes the most money from you dying over there?”
The Stance of a Father
Howard’s advice ultimately serves as a life lesson. By deflecting the deep philosophical question with a mundane command to “pick up the yard,” the author’s father not only gives his son space to process the true cost of war, but also imparts a lasting, cynical—yet protective—wisdom about the geopolitical systems that profit from young soldiers.
For a reminder of the timeless, melancholy sound that sets the mood for the author’s chilling 1968 Chicago memory: [a link to an Otis Redding song on YouTube]
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Have attempted to replicate Google’s AI arbitrarily deciding to psychoanalyze the material referenced, but can’t seem to. Must’ve hit a macro of some kind. Still, it’s an interesting exercise to compare the source assessed with my actual work as written — phrasing, pretty clearly expressed intent, and all around otherwise known as an author’s original prose.
The following excerpt is the actual source, the first chapter from my unwritten memoir, which was posted on my “Memoir(ies)” substack feed.
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Chicago night, 1968. A vacant car idles under the heavy cloak of winter, dark clouds the color of bruises. The car’s driver-side door is open. Otis Redding faint on the radio.
Nearby a thin young mother stands bent before the city’s icy shore. Her husband, my father, fled into the sleeting dark only hours before. She releases the spent cigarette from her hand, lets it drop into the mottled snow where it sizzles and dies. She looks my way, an urgent afterthought. “Stephen,” she confesses, voice wet with the name of my stillborn twin brother.
I shudder. It’s cold.
Eyes wide sober now, my mother presses toward the frigid wind as a worn Marine who’ll raise me darts from the shadows and prevents her willful fall.
Forty-four years later I stand at the edge of a similar abyss, praying my brother will catch me.
I shudder. It’s cold.
--Caucus de Bourbon, Winter’s Son
* * *
“NO,” THE BOY says, plaintive. One of the Ricks’ hands un-cup his small balls. Without another hushed word, the boy slides from under the covers, out of the bedroom, past the other Rick’s room, to the opposite end of the house. The living room couch beckons while the kitchen ‘fridge lulls with a motorized hum that crackles softly now and again. The boy climbs onto the couch. Snug. Safe. Alone. A one-off incident never acknowledged after that night. Not by the Twin Ricks. Not by the little boy. Never to his dad.
It took the Rick mighty brass gumption to try what he did, given who the little boy’s dad is. At age 14, that little boy is me--yes, MSG. (I used to be big in the Chinese restaurant business!)
* * *
Couple years later, it’s the Mid-Seventies. The Vietnam War is just-over. I ask the man who raised me, my Dad, whether I should enlist in the U.S. Marine Corps.
“What for?” he answers.
“You were in the Marines, you and Greg and your brothers went to Vietnam.”
“You want to fight in a war, do you?”
“I don’t know. Grandpa was in Korea and World War II.”
Howard has a wont with words, despite devouring paperback novels at a pace I’ve been unable to keep up with my entire life, spanning sci-fi like Heinlein’s Stormship Troopers to The Destroyer, Executioner and Defender action series, each in their entirety, as well many others, then hoarding every one when finished. Between him and Mom’s book reading, with him skimpily draped only in a terry cloth wrap, sunk into his Naugahyde recliner, goolies bagging out, reading in drab light without glasses, it’s no wonder I write.
While not a monosyllabic man, one even given to jocularity now and again, his volume of verbiage spewed my way this day still smacks upside the head these years later. It’s a lot to take in.
“Before deciding on what you want to do, boy,” he says. “Ask yourself who makes the most money from you dying over there?”
“Over where?”
“They don’t care.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You will. Go pick up the yard.”
By “Go pick up the yard,” what he’s really saying is, I’m reading. Leave me alone. Go outside and shovel dog shit to toss up on the roof.
Instead, I cross the pasture, buck up the trail, and into the dark Oregon woods.
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Okay. Clearly we’re of different minds, AI and EI (me), on the assessment and reading way too deep into what’s written. However, the most important thing is, who the hell is this thieving Michael S. Gaffney (MSG) bitch?